Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	apostle_n	church_n	succession_n	5,435	5	10.3947	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53931	A treatise proving Scripture to be the rule of faith writ by Reginald Peacock ... before the Reformation, about the year MCDL.	Pecock, Reginald, 1395?-1460?; Wharton, Henry, 1664-1695.	1688 (1688)	Wing P1043; ESTC R1772	67,273	88

Treatise which I now publish require me to descend lower and demonstrate that even in latter Ages it was the commonly received Opinion of the Church that Scripture is the Rule of Faith. And this alone will as evidently overthrow the Plea of Tradition as if the Consent of all Ages herein were demonstrated For since Tradition is the perpetual Succession of any Doctrine conveyed down in the Church by word of mouth from the Apostles to this present time if this Succession were in any Age whatsoever interrupted it can no more claim the Title of Tradition than if it had never been believed So that if it can be proved the Doctrine of Tradition being the Rule of Faith was in any Age of the Church disbelieved not only the proof of this Article from Tradition will fail but even the Article it self will appear to be evidently false For it is not possible that Tradition should be the Rule of Faith if that very Article that Tradition is the Rule of Faith were not delivered down by an uninterrupted succession of Belief for then it would not be the Rule of that very Article Besides it is absurd that the Church of any Age should have power of declaring what the Tradition of Faith is and consequently of fixing the Rule of Faith and yet be so far from being conscious of any such power inherent in her that she disbelieved it Not to say that if at any time Tradition was not believed by the Church to be the Rule of Faith and yet at the same time divers Articles of Faith were defined by the Church Tradition must necessarily ever since have ceased to be the Rule of Faith since otherwise all Definitions of the Church must indifferently be admitted made by her both when she followed and when she deviated from the Rule of Faith and consequently the Faith of all private Christians must be subjected to infinite uncertainty Now to prove that the Tradition of this Article was in any Age of the Church interrupted and discontinued it is not necessary that all members of the Church should then agree in the disbelief of it that no Doctors should believe Tradition to be the Rule of Faith or none maintain the Insufficiency of Scripture It is sufficient that some Divines of great name who lived and died in the Communion of the Church were ever held in great esteem both for Piety and Learning and never censured by the Church for any erroneous Opinions much less for Hereticks that some such I say disbelieved this Article and maintained Scripture to be the Rule of Faith. For if any such were then the contrary Opinion could not be the belief of the universal Church much less an Article of Faith. That there were such Doctors I shall immediately prove by producing their own Words and thereby demonstrate my intended purpose And not only so but farther shall therewith render it highly probable that it was the generally received Opinion of the Church at that time that Scripture not Tradition is the Rule of Faith by all those Arguments which a question of this Nature will admit I mean by the authority of the most eminent Writers and publick practice of the Church in Councils For it cannot be imagined that so many Learned Persons esteemed as it were the Oracles of their Times and Pillars of the Church should either be ignorant of the Doctrine of the Church touching the Fundamental Principle of Faith or if willfully opposing it should obtain or conserve to themselves so great a Reputation or that the General Councils of that time should in their Sessions and Disputations permit the Sufficiency of Scripture to be laid down as an uncontroverted Principle without giving some check to so grand an Error That the Church therefore in the fifteenth Age did generally believe the Scripture to be the Rule of Faith and contain all things necessary to Salvation may be evidently demonstrated from this Treatise which I now publish The Author of which was far the most Eminent and Learned Bishop of the Church of England in his time a person who as himself assures us had spent more than twenty years in writing Controversial Books against the Lollards when he composed this Treatise and who every where giveth manifest proof of his great Learning So eminent a person cannot be supposed to have been ignorant of the general Belief of the Church in his time concerning the Rule of Faith nor will his apparent zeal for the Interest of the Church permit us to believe that he wilfully opposed the Doctrine of the Church in whose Service he employed the greatest part of his life or that when he so zealously pleaded the Cause of the Church against the Lollards he should himself depart from the Church in her principal Article and therein become a Lollard Since therefore he plainly asserts and teacheth that Scripture is the Rule of Faith this undeniably proves that the belief of this Proposition was not in the time of our Author accounted any part of Lollardism or supposed Heresie but rather esteemed an Article of Catholick Belief at least an Article which might be freely disputed without violating the Definitions or dissenting from the universal Belief of the Church And indeed our Author in the beginning of this Discourse assureth us that the Doctors of his time disagreed in determining whether the Church or Scripture were chiefly to be respected in the resolution of Faith. One thing may be objected against the Authority of our Author That he was forced by the ruling Clergy to recant several Opinions and Doctrines taught by him as erroneous and consequently that he cannot be esteemed a Doctor of the Church But here not to say that the sentence of two or three partial Bishops for no more condemned him is not to be accounted the Judgment of the Church of England this very Recantation addeth no small strength to our Argument For when the malice of his Enemies obliged him to recant all those Doctrines which they esteemed to be erroneous they took no notice of his having asserted Scripture to be the only Rule of Faith nor obliged him to recant that Proposition a manifest Argument that it was not then accounted either heretical or erroneous or contrary to the received Doctrine of the Church since otherwise they would not have failed to place it in the front of his Recantation as an Error of an higher degree and greater contagion than any of those for which he stood condemned which in truth were so far from being Heresies that they were all at that time maintained by many eminent Divines who never were censured by the Church and some of them so far true that no Learned Man of the Church of Rome will at this day deny them And this also fully clears our Author from any suspicion of Lollardism or secret inclination to it That he was not singular herein defended no Paradox nor opposed any Doctrine of the Church I come next to prove The

the least and the Authority of the Church it self as to the Ground and Foundation of it is chiefly deduced from the Gospel Nay the very Institution Power and Edification of the Church can no way so expresly and certainly be known as from the Gospel But as I imagin it can by no method be so certainly determined whether the Church or the Gospel be of greater Authority as by supposing this Case when the Church defineth any thing contrary to the Gospel I know indeed that this cannot be This is to be understood of the Belief and received Doctrine of the Universal Church not of the Decrees of the Representative Church Otherwise Clemangis will most foolishly contradict himself However that we may the better find out the truth let us put this Case Do you imagin that in that case S. Augustin would have rejected the Doctrine of the Gospel and adhered to the Definition of the Church No surely Where he proceeds at large to urge this Argument and thereby to assert the Superiority of the Scriptures Authority to that of the Church Before the middle of this Century flourished Thomas Waldensis Provincial of the Carmelites and Confessor to two Kings of England Henry V. and Henry VI. successively generally accounted the most Learned English Man of his Age and the great Champion of the Papal Cause against the Lollards and other supposed Hereticks of his time against whom he writ a large and elaborate Work which was in a particular manner confirmed and approved by a special Bull of Pope Martin V. Therein proposing an intire System of Divinity he layeth down the Sufficiency of Scripture as a most certain Principle in three whole Chapters out of which I will produce some few Passages Disputing therefore of all Articles necessary to be believed and the complete System of Christian Faith he useth these words They who yet believe the Canon of Scripture to be imperfect and that it may yet be augmented by the Authority of the Church do yet with the Iews expect the fulness of time perhaps under a Iewish Messias He then takes notice of that famous Passage of S. Augustin I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church perswaded me And giveth this Answer to it I do not approve the arrogance of some Writers who upon occasion of this place maintain the Decrees of Bishops in the Church to be of greater Weight Authority and Dignity than is the Authority of the Scriptures Which indeed seemeth not so foolish as mad unless such an one would say Philip were greater than Christ when he induced Nathanael to believe that Christ was he of whom Moses writ in the Law and the Prophets although without his Authority or Admonition he would not have at that time perceived it All Ecclesiastical Authority since it serveth only to bear testimony of Christ and of his Laws is of less Dignity than the Laws of Christ and must necessarily submit to the Holy Scriptures Well therefore did S. Thomas Aquinas allegorize when he introduced the Samaritan Woman to represent the universal Church which Woman when the Citizens of Samaria heard preaching Christ they were induced to believe on him c. This Passage clearly represents to us the Opinion of Waldensis to have been that by the attestation of the Church the Divine Authority of the Scripture is known which being once known all matters of Belief and Articles of Faith are to be learned from the Scripture just as Philip induced Nathanael and the Samaritan Woman her Neighbours to believe Christ to be a Divine Person of the truth of which when once satisfied they learned not the Rules of Life or Articles of Faith from Philip or the Woman but received both from Christ himself And therefore Waldensis subjoyns That the Authority of the Scripture is far superior to the Authority of all Doctors even of the whole Catholick Church and that although the Catholick Church should attest and confirm their Authority that the Authority of all latter Men following the Apostles and Churches ought to be submitted to the Authority of the holy Canon even to its Footstool That the former is subjected to the latter as a Witness to a Iudge and a testimony to the truth as a promulgation to a Law and as an Herald to a King. As a testimony therefore is no farther to be regarded than as it is true a promulgation invalid when it either increaseth or mutilates the Law and an Herald not to be obeyed when he exceeds the Commission of the King so the Decrees Definitions and Doctrines of the Church are no longer to be respected than as they are exactly conformable to the Scripture and deduced from it Upon this account Waldensis teacheth in the next Chapter That the Church cannot superadd any new Articles of Faith to the Scripture and that the Faith from the times of John the Evangelist who writ the last Book of Scripture receiveth no increase And therefore applieth to the Books of Canonical Scripture the measure of the new City of God made by the Angel in the XXI Chapter of the Revelations That as the circuit of that City consisted of so many miles neither more nor less so the whole System of Christian Faith and Divine Revelations is completed and contained in so many Books of Scripture and can receive no farther Addition Lastly shewing how many ways the Knowledge of the Catholick Truth may be attained he saith It may be obtained best of all and most certainly from the Canonical Scripture He proceeds to prove this from the Authority of S. Augustin and then concludes See four ways of coming to the undoubted Truth but more or less certain of which the first and most certain is by the Holy Scriptures the rest begetting only an Historical and uncertain knowledge of the Articles of Religion However these Doctors already mentioned were of great authority and sufficiently declare the common Doctrine of the Church in their time yet the practice and judgment of General Councils will give us greater assurance of it Two General Councils were held at the same time in this Age the one at Basil the other at Florence In both together the whole Western Church was present by its Representatives and in that of Florence the Eastern also These two Councils indeed thundered out Excommunications one against the other yet both agreed in using Scripture as the Rule of their Definitions and in all Disputations laid that down as a common uncontroverted Principle I begin with the Council of Basil wherein Iohannes de Ragusio a Learned Dominican by the appointment of the Bishops disputed publickly in the year 1433. against the Bohemians about Communion under both kinds Here magnifying the Authority of the Church he urgeth this Argument chiefly that without the Attestation of the Church the Divine Authority of the Scripture cannot be known and consequently that the Authority of the Church is antecedent to the knowledge even